Russia mulls troop reinforcement in strategic directions

Russian Defense Ministry’s plan for 2015 has been updated towards boosting the combat strength of the Armed Forces stemming from the current military and political situation around Russia, Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu said at the Friday meeting of the Ministry Board.

“For these purposes, we intend to reinforce troops and forces in strategic directions,” he said. According to Shoygu, they are taking measures to re-equip the Armed Forces with advanced armament and military hardware and adjust the ongoing construction of military towns and facilities.

The defense minister said provision of the troops with advanced armament, military hardware and special equipment directly depends on their timely production and quality. “Now, we are actively working towards import-substitution and look to complete a range of development and engineering projects,” Shoigu said.

“Considering the current economic situation, we should ensure efficient spending of funds that are provided for re-equipment of the Armed Forces,” the minister said. “In this light, we have a number of major tasks to fulfill: to analyze the ongoing activities, take measures to speed up the completion of the prior development and engineering projects, and refuse from outdated surveys.”

“Recently we have requested a comprehensive audit of all the development and engineering projects that were implemented during the past years and will be continued in the future. Now, we can see that the projects with insignificant results and delays are no longer relevant, given the rapidly changing situation in the field of armament and military hardware,” the minister said.

He noted that all the measures have been taken for synchronized and timely fulfillment of the plan.